![]() ![]() But it works, because it really feels that we’re getting the complete story here. It’s daring to insert one of Shakespeare’s god-tier characters into the play for a five-minute cameo (the star of ‘Henry IV’, Falstaff’s only role in a standard ‘Henry V’ is to die offstage). Flashing back to his wilder days, the show kicks off with Harington’s gurning Henry vomming over the stage to a remix of ‘Sweet Caroline’, followed by a compressed version of his friendship with and rejection of Steven Meo’s old skinhead Falstaff. Webster’s production is carefully structured to make the story as lucid as humanly possible, with the biggest chunk of the added running time coming from a new intro crafted from bits of ‘Henry IV’. Whatever the actual budget, there is the sense of no expense spared.Īnd yet none of this is thrown away in empty bombast. There are frickin’ opera singers in the cast: four of them, singing grandiose, sanctified laments over the unfolding action. The French characters speak in actual (surtitled) French, not the usual accented English. But we’re transported across England and France via lush, elemental projection from Andrzej Goulding. Fly Davis’s set is simple but grand: a massive, burnished steps and wall, that later opens to reveal a baleful St. It’s the first version I’ve seen in which every single scene is given room to breathe - even the dopey throwaway ones like the French army bantering the night before battle.ĭirector Max Webster’s world-building is immaculate and classy. This is ‘Henry V’ given the widescreen treatment, the stage equivalent to a luxury miniseries adaptation, stretching a full half-hour longer than most productions. The Donmar’s Kit Harington-starring take on Shakespeare’s usually zippy war play is BIG. ![]()
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